What the...?

How is it, please, that I can read a report on how much underprivileged people spend on fast food and dining out?

One of the many reasons I decided to write my cookbook was because of this report. It identified the underprivileged as the single largest user-group of fast food restaurants. The same report went on to identify the same group of people in Canada and the US as the most likely to become morbidly obese, develop type 2 diabetes (non-insulin dependant) and/or heart disease in their lifetimes. Scary, huh?

Recently, we decided to renovate our home. Part of the reno included being without a kitchen/cooking tools for nearly 2 weeks. One of our discoveries in this time period was how bloody expensive it is to eat out every day. The other was just how gross we ended up feeling, regardless of the food we ate (my usual pick was salad - Leon's was usually a high-protein something or other - but we were proudly staying away from burgers!). At a minimum of $30/night for a family of four, 2 weeks was too many for our bodies and our wallets. Keep in mind that that's just ONE MEAL PER DAY!

The cookbook features fresh foods, cooked with a minimum of work and maximum of flavour - all for less than $20/day... to easily feed a family of 4-6, with leftovers. I plan on marketing this book to our local social service agency, and donating a bunch of copies to our local food bank, to be included in the bags of food they give out. Hopefully this can be my small contribution to a fast-food world gone wrong.

If anyone out there has any recipes they'd like to share or have included in the book, please e-mail me. The only rules are that they have to feed a family of four (with leftovers, if possible), they have to use fresh ingredients and they have to cost less than $15 to make. I WILL try them!